Robert Hall

Speaking of memes, this time last year I was working at a startup in Scottsdale with a team of 20-somethings, all Mac and Toyota fan boys (Priuses, an FJ Cruiser, Matrix, a couple Camrys, etc) and they drove me nuts by constantly using the meme 'That's what she said' in conversation. Funny once or twice, but 50 times a day? AUGGGGGHHHH. And constantly refererencing web cartoons 'Penny Arcade', 'XKCD', and 'Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal'. Talk about a generation gap...was glad to get out of there and back into big corporate environments that are more professional.

The internet is a series of tubes, not a big truck.

Well, I am over 30, so I'm not hip with what the latest all the kiddies are talking about, esp. anything related to games..

Hmmm...you are missing words known as 'verbs' in your conversation. 'I accidentally my printer'--huh?

AP ArticleDETROIT – The new General Motors arose on Friday as lawyers finished an all-night paperwork session transferring the bulk of the automaker's assets to a company controlled by the U.S. government.Once the world's largest and most powerful automaker, new GM is now cleansed of massive debt and burdensome contracts that would have sunk it without federal loans.But the new GM also emerges amidst the worst sales slump in a quarter-century.The massive transfer of factories, money and intellectual property was completed about 6:30 a.m., according to a person briefed on the situation, clearing the way for a smaller and faster company better equipped to compete in the brutally tough global automotive market.The person, who asked to remain anonymous because the deal wasn't announced officially, said the signing meant the new GM had emerged from bankruptcy. The person said lawyers spent the night signing a 2-foot-high pile of documents clearing the way for the asset sale to the new company.One bankruptcy expert called GM's 40-day case the fastest ever for a company of its size. The speedy close marks a victory for the Obama administration, which now boasts two successful automaker reorganizations. Government and company officials had expected the bankruptcy to last as long as 90 days, but it went even faster than crosstown rival Chrysler Group LLC, which spent 42 days under court protection.GM's warp-speed emergence from bankruptcy is expected to be announced by CEO Fritz Henderson and new Chairman Edward Whitacre Jr. at a 9 a.m. news conference at the company's Detroit headquarters.Henderson is also expected to announce details of the plan to make new GM profitable again. The troubled automaker has lost more than $80 billion in the past four years.The plan Henderson is expected to outline includes cutting another 4,000 white-collar jobs, including 450 top executives. The company still employs 88,000 people in the U.S. and 235,000 worldwide. And he'll announce that product development guru Bob Lutz will stay with the company as an adviser, rescinding his retirement that was to take place by year's end.He also will describe how GM will streamline its bureaucratic management structure to become profitable again. GM has said it will be able to make money even if the U.S. auto market stays at a depressed level of 10 million to 10.5 million vehicles sold.Yet despite massive cost reductions, experts say GM must produce vehicles that people want to buy, and change its image to one on the cutting edge of efficiency and quality. The new automaker now must win back customers in the worst auto sales market in more than 25 years."It is the smaller, leaner, tougher, better cost-focused GM," said George Magliano, an automotive analyst with the consulting firm IHS Global Insight. "But they still have to deal with the problems that they faced longer-term."Rep. Gary Peters, whose Michigan district is home to three GM factories, said the company's emergence signals a new era for the domestic auto industry and the thousands of people it employs."With bankruptcy in the rearview mirror, U.S. auto companies will even more aggressively pursue new technologies, become more globally competitive," he said. "Decades from now, our nation will be glad we did not let a global credit crisis put an end to the American automobile.""I'm very much looking forward to a point where we're operating in clear air, and the name of the company not being associated with bankruptcy and loans and these things," said Mark LaNeve, GM's North American marketing chief.GM ranked as the top global automaker in terms of sales for 77 years before Japan's Toyota Motor Corp. snatched its crown in 2008. The company sold nearly 8.4 million cars and trucks around the world in 2008, falling short of Toyota's nearly 9 million.Once the largest corporation in America, GM held the top spot in the Fortune 500 ranking for 20 years before being pushed out of the top spot in 1973 by Exxon Mobil Corp. It reclaimed No. 1 status in 1985 and held it for another 15 years.Experts say GM's success will depend largely on its ability to persuade consumers that it's a different company, one that builds cars that will equal or outlast Japanese models. To illustrate the change, GM is considering a new name.Turning a profit will not be easy. GM has piled up losses and survives only because it expects to receive $50 billion in U.S. government loans. Without the loans, its executives have said the company would have been sold off in pieces.The Obama administration has said it does not plan to interfere with day-to-day operations, though it ousted ex-CEO Rick Wagoner and has been involved in picking the new company's board.Most of GM's model lineup is expected to stay unchanged for now. But the company on Friday will probably show off its newer, more efficient models, as well as plans for a U.S.-made subcompact and rechargeable electric vehicles.In addition to the U.S. government's 61 pewrcent controlling interest, the United Auto Workers union gets a 17.5 percent stake of the company through its retiree health care trust, and the Canadian government will control 11.7 percent. The remaining shares went to bondholders of the old company.The parts of GM not moving to the new company will become part of "old GM," a collection of assets and liabilities that will be sold to pay creditors.

Heh-heh...nope, sounds fun, though. I'm working on mortgage and loan processing systems these days for a major bank.

Cool..I've worked w/ some very good graphic artists and UI designers, working w/ Flash, Flex, etc. Look and feel and good user interaction is difficult to get right. The UIs I've built for applications have been pretty ugly, but functional...

Yeah, the business logic, data/persistence layers, web services, messaging, etc. Pretty much all Java development. A lot of what I do is designing and implementing components that run in app servers (JBOSS, IBM Websphere, BEA Weblogic, etc). I've dabbled in GUIs a bit--worked with Applets back in the '90s, more recently, JSP, JSF, Struts. Though usually I work in teams where we have a dedicated UI designer, GUI developer, and I work the middle tier and database sides..

It's going to be interesting to see what happens to MySQL. Sold? Renamed as an Oracle product? I've worked w/ PostgreSQL on a couple small projects years ago, not sure how well it scales. It always seems when I'm on a big project, the client has already committed to Oracle or DB2.

Yeah, it's not a big truck.

Yes, Google's whole software model is web-based, like Docs, Gmail. Different application model from Windows, OSX, Unix, etc. I've been looking into the GWT and other Google technologies, incl. their API for Phone app development... I've been doing enterprise Java for over a decade, looking into Ruby on Rails or phone software development for my next direction, or for side projects...

Yah....next time will be August 8 if you use European date formatting, though..

I saw a maroon Olds Touring like that in the GM tent at Barrett-Jackson last year. Got to ask, though, how would you tell a '23 Olds Touring from a '22 or a '24 (without a sign). I haven't a clue...

On the way home, I saw a pale blue '76 or so Dodge Aspen 4dr, tan vinyl interior, windows down, 65 mph...looked solid. I pity the poor guy driving w/o A/C on a 110 degree day like today. Near home, I saw a white w/ black vinyl top and Cragar SS wheels '71 Pontiac GT-37 (saw the badges!). Very clean except for a large scrape on the left front fender and door.

Stopped for a bagel and coffee this morning, saw a black '10 Camaro SS in front of Einstein's Bagels. First one I've seen up close and personal...nothing parked on either side, so I could do a walk-around...this car has some great proportions and contours...love the rear fender 'hips'....it's proudly RWD and low and wide. Looks even better in person than in pics. I'd previously only seen them at speed on freeways or streets and from a distance at a Chevy dealer.

That's one of my favorite GM concepts of the last decade or so...great dramatic shape.

Speaking of manually entering data, the aviation project I worked on a couple of years ago was to take daily updates to airport/etc chart data from the FAA and automate the process of getting it into databases that are used by applications for avionic nav systems and the production of paper charts. I was amazed how much of the process is/was still heavily manual entry, considering how many data points for all the runways, airports, navigation features, etc in the world there are...pretty complex stuff.

I haven't... I've seen it, but haven't used it. I haven't done much w/ PHP, Python, LISP, VB or any of the scripting languages, mostly have stayed in the Java (not Javascript) OO programming realm, working in insurance, banking, telecom, and aviation related enterprise applications...lots of back end server side design and development, not much GUI or Web front end work. About the only scripting language I've dabbled with in recent years is Ruby.

I've worked extensively as a developer/architect in enterprise applications this decade w/ various versions of Oracle, DB2, and SQL Server. I'd rather work w/ Oracle than the others. DB2 has a lot of issues... But for small web apps, I've been liking MySQL quite a bit.. It's going to be very interesting the next few years to see what happens since Oracle bought Sun, and Sun's Java technology has been my main area of expertise the last 13 years... I've been getting into Ruby on Rails and other technologies the last couple years, but JEE development is still my main thing....

I've been using the Chrome browser since it first became public, like it alot, moreso than Firefox or Safari. I'll be looking forward to giving the Chrome OS a spin when it eventually comes out. I've got a mix of OSes on different machines at home, from XP and Vista to Linux, Solaris, and Mac OS X...each has their positives and negatives. At work, I use XP.

It's the GM car and CUV brand that fits between Chevy and Cadillac. The middle brand. i.e. Pontiac+Saturn+ old Buick = new Buick?

GM fan GM enthusiasts Chevrolet Impala Chevrolet Caprice Chevrolet Silverado Chevrolet Tahoe Chevrolet Suburban Chevrolet Cobalt Chevrolet Cavalier Chevrolet Avalanche Chevrolet Express Chevrolet Corvette Chevrolet Cruze Chevrolet Aveo Chevy Impala Chevy Caprice Chevy Silverado Chevy Tahoe Chevy Suburban Chevy Cobalt Chevy Cavalier Chevy Avalanche Chevy Express Chevy Corvette Chevy Cruze Chevy Aveo Pontiac G3 Pontiac G5 Pontiac G6 Pontiac G8 Pontiac Grand Prix Pontiac Montana Pontiac Torrent Pontiac Solstice Pontiac Excitement! Chevy Aveo Cadillac CTS Cadillac CTS-v Cadillac DTS Cadillac STS Cadillac Escalade Oldsmobile Cutlass Buick LaCrosse Buick Lucerne Buick Enclave Buick Regal Saturn Vue Saturn Astra Saturn Aura Saturn Outlook Saturn Sky GMC Acadia GMC Terrain GMC Sierra GMC Sierra HD GMC Sierra Denali GMC Yukon GMC Yukon Denali GMC Envoy GMC Topkick GMC Savana HUMMER H1 HUMMER H2 HUMMER H3 HUMMER H3T Something like this? Search term pairs?

One of the worst misapplications of a hood scoop I've seen is a '69 Mustang Mach 1 scoop (complete w/ 351 badges) on a gold Chrysler 300M.. Also had a '69-70 Mustang style rear spoiler. WTF?????? Such application of parts to a car shows a complete obliviousness to brand correctness and history...if you are going to put vintage style parts on a modern Chrysler, at least use something Mopar.

Another cheezy fad from the late '80s that still is seen a bit today are the tinted headlight and taillight covers. Often the same folks that like the huge windshield logos. Another one that wasn't mentioned are ground affects and other body kits. Most non-factory ones look so cheesy.

This took me way back to way back when...my first Internet experiences were w/ CompuServe, age 13, 1983. I didn't have a computer then, but one of my buddies in jnr. high did, and a bunch of us used to go over to his house and go online. I didn't get my own internet access until college in '88. article: CompuServe article